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The Project Management Mindset
By Ryan Leibowitz
Project management as a science and art is undergoing key transformations as a result of countless stories of failed projects, cost overruns, and canceling that project that took 2 years of your employee's lives. Needless to say, these scenarios not only cost money, time, and lost opportunities, but also have a longer term impact on the overall morale of a workforce.
Though there is no panacea to these inevitable outcomes, it's important to take a look back on the cornerstones that define effective and success-prone project management.
Ultimately project management like most disciplines, requires just that-discipline. This discipline of mindset far outweighs any single tool, or management fad with a catchy name. The PMBOK or The Project Management Body of Knowledge is a good reference guide to begin, refocus, or sharpen your project management mindset.
Here are some key attributes of the Project Manager mentality:
1. A solid understanding and vigilant re-education in the discipline, the science, and the are of project management and it's key knowledge and practice areas.
2. The experience and wherewithal to not attack a project with everything and the kitchen sink and instead being able to pick out the appropriate tools for improving implementation and the planning of the project.
3. Understand the dynamics of a team, and serve as the glue that holds the members together.
4. The ability to incorporate the new methodologies with the old on the fly.
5. People, People, People! A knack for understanding how to communicate effectively with your team members as it relates to project changes, overall progress, and transcribing the overall vision for the project throughout it's duration.
Overall the skills required to achieve the project manager mentality are: being flexible, possessing strong oral/written communications, the ability to think strategically and solve problems on your feet, team building and interpersonal skills, a sense of accountability for yourself and your team members, and finally the technical credibility to lead the project in question.
About the Author
For more project management tips, including software, and resources, please visit http://www.managethat.com/blog. For a listing of free software please visit http://www.managethat.com/free-project-management-software.htm
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| Some other articles by Ryan Leibowitz | Project Management: Performance Metrics Matter
A study has shown that many project managers do not sufficiently keep track of the performance metrics of their teams. This results in consistent cost overruns, going over schedule, failing to meet expectations in quality, ...
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